You Can't
by bookstolivewith
Summary: Lily understands the dangers of being a Muggleborn. James Potter doesn't. One shot.


Some events progress at a natural rate. Boy meets girl (or any variation thereof), boy loses girl (or perhaps he doesn't), boy gets girl in the end. It's natural and wonderful and sometimes raw but always real and hardly lastingly exciting. It's a shame really because love should always be breathtaking but naturally, it isn't. There are a few couples, who have withstood the test of time, whose love was heartbreaking and wonderful and swoon-worthy - these are the couples who toss aside natural progression to the point where it becomes sort of absurd. This is one of these couples.

James tried so hard to progress naturally but it was futile. No one falls in love that young. No one, in the entire history of the world, has ever had this sort of burning, protective, exhilarating, love at his age. He firmly believed that… and yet, couldn't deny his attraction the fair red-headed beauty who sat catty-corner from him at the library table. Sirius argued it was lust and if he just had a good shag with someone else, James would forget all about his Lily. Remus disagreed - this was more than lust and he clapped James on the back and told him to patient and all would come to him in due time.

James smiled as he thought of his friend's advice - sure, Sirius could be a little vulgar but really, he was a teenage boy and who could blame him? Maybe he was right - James just needed a good shag (a first shag, actually). Lily coughed a bit, her hand across her mouth, bringing James's attention back to her. Then she smiled at him and all other thoughts of all other girls flew from his mind because when he got down to it, he loved her. He did, even though he had trouble saying it out loud. Sometimes.

Lily's smiles, little did she know, caused James stomach to go warm and squirmy and all the blood rush to all of the most inappropriate (but right) places. And Merlin help him if she laughed. No, Lily didn't know this - all she knew was that James was looking at her, slightly slack-jawed with concerned eyes (as if one cough meant she could be catching the plague or some other ridiculous notion) and she found it adorable.

But wait, she couldn't. Not because she didn't love him, love James - she did love him (Lily was on the slow side of natural progression) and was past the denial stage but not quite to the point where she had told him she wanted to go out with him. Lily and James were just friends, fast friends, good friends (with a few touchy spots they preferred not to touch).

Even that scared Lily. Everything scared Lily these days, though. The Daily Prophet and their reports made her shiver and shudder and look away because (surprisingly) Lily was squeamish. Her parents were oblivious to these dangers and Petunia was mean and so she wasn't worried for them, not yet - she was worried for her magical friends, the ones who were truly dealing with this oncoming war. Lily had severed ties with all but her closest friend - Alice, dear Alice who had refused to be sent away. Lily loved and hated her for the selflessness of her act.

Lily knew she had to rid herself of James, knew that his Pureblood status wouldn't protect him forever and always, as she sometimes liked to imagine. She was well aware that every day she was friends with him, James was in danger. So, with all her courage and self-loathing and regret, Lily looked James in the eye and said "You can't be friends with me, Potter" but in a whispered tone; after all, they were in a library.

James's eyes widened before he blinked hard, nose crinkled, just sort of staring at her in disbelief. He whispered back, "What?"

"You can't be friends with me."

"Why?"

"Well, I'd rather not say."

Lily really didn't expect to get away with that last comment, but if she hoped against hope. No, never mind, just look at him.

James looked furious - spitting, bull-in-a-china-shop, rampaging furious. His Lily sat across from him, guiltily flicking through a textbook and scribbling on parchment. James realized this wasn't a conversation for the library. As gently as possible (which wasn't too gently, actually), he packed his belongings away, reached over and lifted Lily from the chair by her arm - she winced but he didn't loosen his grip until they'd left the libraries, paraded through the halls ("POTTER, LET GO!") and arrived at the Head's Dorms. Then he let go, paced several times while Lily waited and then, James exploded.

"WHAT IN THE SODDING BLOODY HELL DO YOU MEAN-? LILY EVANS, I SWEAR TO MERLIN, IF YOU DON'T… I CANNOT BELIEVE…DO YOU EVEN KNOW… LILY EVANS, EXPLAIN!"

James was panting and had a maniacal glint in his eye. Lily lifted her eyes from the floor to the boy raging in front of her. She opened her mouth several times, while James seethed. Eventually, she just shook her head and said "You won't understand."

"Explain. Now." It was a growl of reply and sent shivers up Lily's spine - it was attractive, that voice.

Lily debated how she could possibly explain this to James. She decided that since that they were friends, she could explain in a friendly way - the way she had sent everyone else away. She crossed the room to sit on the couch and she gestured for James to join her - which he did because angry or not, James was at Lily's beck and call.

"It's dangerous out there, isn't it?"

"Yes."

James watched Lily turn slowly toward him and say "No interruptions." He nodded, slowly, sullenly and felt the fire burn in his chest - heartbreak and love and disapproval and curiosity all at once.

"It's really, really scary out there. I mean, it'd be scary anyway because growing up is always terrifying but, Merlin, it's really bad. I'm rambling, I know but sometimes I still can't wrap my head around how astonishingly evil He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is-"

"Voldemort."

"Shut up, Potter. No interruptions, remember?" Lily was answered with a duck of James' head, which she knew meant that he understood but didn't necessarily agree with the stipulations of her explanation.

"Now, it's not so bad for you, is it? I mean, Purebloods - regardless of whether you like the blood purifying regime or not - you can always just pay things off or put in votes of indifference or whatever… Shut your mouth, James Potter, I know you're not like that, I know but you could be (_Couldn't, _thought James) but you're friends with me. And that's why, that's why you can't be friends with a Mudblood like me-"

"DON'T call yourself that."

"DON'T INTERRUPT ME JAMES - I'LL CALL MYSELF WHATEVER I BLOODY WANT, THANK YOU. BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT I SODDING AM, ISN'T IT? I'M A MUGGLE BORN WITCH, A MUDBLOOD AND I'M PUTTING EVERYONE I KNOW, EVERYONE I LOVE IN DANGER AND THAT INCLUDES YOU BECAUSE MERLIN KNOWS I LOVE YOU. I DON'T CARE IF YOU LOVE ME, YOU CAN'T LOVE ME. YOU HAVE TO BE SAFE AND LIVE AND-".

Lily promptly dissolved into tears and brought her knees up onto the couch so that she could rest her head on them and pretend that she wasn't crying even though her shouts and screams and sobs could have woken the dead. James's brain was reeling, trying to process all that she'd screamed at him but he just couldn't - all he could think of was that his Lily was sitting across from him and crying as if the world was going to end.

James reached out and pulled the sobbing Lily onto his lap (in an awkward but comforting way). He stroked her hair and whispered to her, all anger dissolved, until Lily's wails became soft little hiccups. Instead of immediately disengaging herself from James's chest however, Lily tilted her head up, not catching James's eye, and said "I'm sorry. For all that. "

James' rolls his eyes and assures her that crying is nothing to be sorry about - and while he doesn't like her to be sad, he enjoys seeing her vulnerable. He earns himself a light slap to the chest for that comment. Lily doesn't like to think of herself as weak, even though she knows she is weak. Finally she props herself up, resettling next to James on the couch, leaving an inch or two between them and fiddles with her fingers before saying "I'm right and you know it."

James sighed because she is right and he hates that more than anything in the entire world. He hates this bitter, empty, dark world that he has to fight for and against and protect. But he refuses to lose her because he loves her and she… wait, what was that? Did she, when she was yelling, she said something that he had just now picked up on,

"Did you say you loved me? In all that yelling, did you actually admit to loving me? Like really, love me? As in not just mates sort of love?"

Lily nodded and gave a sad little laugh (that he should focus on that) but then shook her head. "Doesn't matter, really, whether I love you or not, does it? Not anymore."

"Lily, are you joking? Are you sodding joking? Of course it matters…" James sounded incredulous and elated and confused - he looked like Christmas had come early but without presents.

Lily just looked at James, biting her lip and eyes watering slightly because she couldn't let him love her. She couldn't.

"Do you love me?"

Damn her traitor mouth - she wanted to keep him safe.

James's eyes widened again and then softened. "Of course, I do. You know I do. You know I love you, Lily Evans. Despite everything you've ever said to me, and done to me, and probably vice versa, and how young we are, I completely love you."

Tears rolled down Lily's face at his admission and she nodded because she had already known everything he'd just said. But to hear him say it, admit it to himself and to her - that was overwhelming. James reached over and used his thumbs to wipe tears from his Lily's face and then cupped her chin, until she was forced to look him in the eye. "And you love me?" he questioned her, still not entirely believing. She nodded and bit her lip and tried to keep her tears from escaping once more.

James's face was sunshine and rainbows and birthdays and the love he felt could have killed Voldemort with a single word as he leaned down to finally kiss his Lily because that is what you do when you are in love. But she stopped him - a few fingertips to his chin and lips and James drew back as though burned, desire still burning in his eyes.

"You can't" Lily said, shaking her head at him before slowly withdrawing her fingers from his face. James's eyes glistening with determination and love, tinged with protection and wonder as he looked Lily in the eyes and said, with a undertone of a chuckle, "You can't stop me."

Then he leaned into kiss her (not earth shattering as James would have you believe but comforting, which is what Lily tells you) and Lily let her eyes shut and a few tears leak out but mostly it was just Lily and James, feeling and loving and being them. Because they were one of those couples that tossed aside natural progression (one being far too fast and one being far to slow) and just lived.


End file.
